


The Answer Is Yes

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Arthur Pendragon Returns, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, ah well, this could be awful, this was for a friend for christmas last year and it probably could use some reworking but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9815912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: The beast they're fighting is huge, probably about as tall as a siege trebuchet. Built like a boulder and ten times as thick, the beast is tearing through London’s buildings as easily as a sharp sword through the finest silk. It has the feet of a lion supporting the body of a crocodile and, naturally, its rooster head breathes fire. It even has the elements on its side, as the wind ensures the blasts of fire shoot farther than Arthur imagines they would ordinarily.It's a touch insulting, really. Not just that Albion's greatest danger is a chicken, but that the king and his court sorcerer are losing to it.______________Reincarnation AU, from Arthur's perspective.





	

“Arthur! Get down!”

Arthur looks up involuntarily at Merlin's shout and immediately dives to the side. A section of the London Eye crashes to the ground, shaking the trees and and making fat grey pigeons take flight in alarm. The impact tears up bits of the pavement and turns them into arrows that sting Arthur's forearms and the backs of his hands as he shields his face.

“Merlin! On your left!” he shouts back.

The beast they're fighting is huge, probably about as tall as a siege trebuchet. Built like a boulder and ten times as thick, the beast is tearing through London’s buildings as easily as a sharp sword through the finest silk. It has the feet of a lion supporting the body of a crocodile and, naturally, its rooster head breathes fire. It even has the elements on its side, as the wind ensures the blasts of fire shoot farther than Arthur imagines they would ordinarily.

It's a touch insulting, really. Not just that Albion's greatest danger is a chicken, but that the king and his court sorcerer are losing to it.

Arthur ducks as the thing blasts fire at him. The ornamental tree behind him goes up in flames, and he curses under his breath. It's lucky it's nighttime; otherwise, they'd have countless lives to worry about instead of just their own. That tree could very well have been a person.

Arthur doesn't think he could stand it if he caused the death of another person. Not that he won't fight to save Merlin's life or his own, if need be. What he really wants is for this fight to be finished, the threat to Albion vanquished, even if his kingdom has changed so much he doesn't recognize it anymore.

That's not true. He looks toward Merlin where he's fighting on the bridge. 

What Arthur really wants is to know if it's possible to have two soulmates, two different people one dearly and truly loves, in a single lifetime. His heart had been torn between two people even when he was Camelot’s prince and king, and he was lucky to have one of the objects of his fancy love him back. The other … he doesn't think he’ll ever deserve to be that lucky.

But, he thinks as the chicken's beak opens again and screams fire at him, now is not the time. He stuffs the idea down and out of sight and sprints toward the warlock.

It's partly due to magic that there aren't any bystanders to their battle. Merlin worked a complicated spell to seal off the blocks surrounding the Eye and the bridge leading to the Houses of Parliament. Anyone living within a three block radius had led earlier that day, having suddenly remembered vacations or weddings in far off places. It felt deeply wrong to use magic to trick the people who were, for all intents and purposes, his own.

Arthur ignores his sliver of guilt at the deception and runs to his place beside Merlin. The other young man's face and arms are beaded with sweat, his dark hair pushed crazily by the wind. There's a long burn covering his right bicep, but a familiar determination dances brightly in his blue eyes.

“How are you faring?” Arthur asks, shouting to be heard over the wind. He leaps aside as a hunk of stone falls from a tall residential building. The stone crushes the queue leading to nowhere, the station for London’s tallest Ferris wheel having been obliterated moments before. Arthur winces, fervently hoping the city doesn't trace this damage back to them.

“Never better,” Merlin replies absently. He roughly pulls Arthur behind him by the shoulder, inadvertently pressing against a deep bruise. Arthur's about to complain about this treatment when the warlock magically forces a fiery attack into a gentle cloud of bubbles.

“How are we going to beat this thing?” Arthur asks. “It's moving closer to the bridge.”

Merlin twists his hands in the air and water erupts from the air before his palms. It scatters against the beast’s stomach, dissipating into the semidarkness, and the creature howls in protest. The sorcerer shoots Arthur a grin. “Dumb luck?” he suggests. “It always seems to work for you.”

Arthur files away a retort for use after they defeat the beast and contents himself for glowering before being again distracted. There’s something strange about the beast’s reaction to Merlin’s water. It seemed reluctant to stay in contact with it for too long. Perhaps … 

“Do you think it can swim?” Arthur asks, an idea springing to mind. He glances at the railing of the bridge. Sturdy enough, and stone; it should hold.

Their many years of fighting together means Merlin immediately picks up on his train of thought. He looks at the creature, which is steadily approaching, and then follows Arthur’s gaze to the railing. Merlin plucks a length of rope from under his shirt with quick, narrow fingers. “Do you think that’ll work?”

Arthur doesn’t bother responding. Instead he darts across to the other side of the bridge, trailing on end of the rope behind him. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work. Unless, of course, the beast decides to breathe fire at the rope, but it hadn’t displayed such intelligence thus far. Hunkered down in the shadow of what Merlin calls a streetlight, Arthur lets his eyes rest on the warlock, both thrilled to be in his presence and terrified of his own feelings.

The creature thunders towards them, bringing with it a strong smell of wet feathers and singed fur. It’s closer than a stone’s throw from him. Its sharp, beady eyes focus at once on Arthur, and he is deeply unsettled by the knowledge he sees within their blackness.

“Merlin, I don’t think …”

But he’s interrupted by a triumphant caw as the beast’s sharp beak darts straight for his face. With a yelp he dives into the road, letting his side of the rope go slack. His bruised shoulder sings in pain as the skin breaks. There’s a sharp, stinging pain in his side, and his head swims.

“Arthur!” Merlin cries from a great distance away. 

It seems, Arthur thinks dazedly, that Merlin’s calling from the bottom of a deep well from the way his voice echoes so roundly. Or perhaps it is he, Arthur, lying at the bottom. He stretches out his hand experimentally, reaching clumsily for the rope. He can’t let Merlin down, not now. Not with all this time between them, not without telling him everything. He’ll do this for his manservant. His fingers close around the roughness of the rope.

“Now, what do you think you’re doing, little prince?”

It’s a voice that sounds like what chickens would say if they could speak, but with a sharp edge and the smoothness of running blood over pavement. Arthur looks up to locate the source, his vision blurring.

Something nudges his shoulder roughly and smells him. “Or is it king now? I can tell from your scent, Arthur Pendragon.”

Back in Camelot Merlin screams his name once more. Arthur imagines they ride together on horseback, leaping over brooks and splashing through streams. He says something that makes Merlin laugh, except — why does he sound as though he’s crying?

“Yes, the Once and Future King,” the terrible voice says musingly. “I expected you would be more of a challenge. I’ve heard such amazing tales of your knights; I assumed their king would be the same, if not more than they.”

Arthur distantly hears feet pounding against the pavement and a moment later someone touches his side. He cries out in pain, and the hands move to his face, delicately skimming his forehead. Someone is saying his name over and over as they hold him.

“Don’t go, please stay with me. Arthur, please, this is not how this is supposed to go…”

Arthur remembers hearing this before; it’s Merlin holding him, then, it must be. A sliver of him smiles at the contact while the rest of him agonizes over the echo of the past.

“Little warlock. What is it you plan to do now?” the beast asks, amused.

He’s aware, faintly, that Merlin stopped tending to him when the beast spoke. The sharp edge of a paving stone presses sharply into his back and a vague, unshaped part of him wonders at how it was made.

Merlin stands. His hands are in a bracing position, as if to block a heavy weight, as he stares down the beast, and Arthur feels his life ebbing onto the road. He hopes suddenly that Merlin doesn’t back up and trip over him; he doesn’t want to ruin the last moments of Merlin’s life any more than he has. Not to mention it would be an ignoble end for the both of them.

“How do I save him?” comes Merlin’s tearful voice from far above him. It slips sweetly into his ears, soothing the clamor inside his mind. He clings to it tightly. “Tell me!”

“I am not a dragon, to have to do as you command,” the creature replies. “I have no reason to tell you.”

“I know it’s venom, just tell me how to stop it, please,” Merlin pleads. A pressure on Arthur’s head tells him Merlin has sunk down beside him and is once again touching his face. His vision is all but gone now. The glow from the streetlight casts a strange glow to what he can see of Merlin’s face, which looks blurry around the edges as though he’s looking through fogged glass.

“Ah, but you know, young warlock,” says the beast. “You know, but you fear what you must do. You fear it because you do not know the king’s heart.”

“I do, I know how he feels—” Arthur feels Merlin move toward him. He wishes he could speak, to reassure him.

The creature hisses, “Then prove it. Prove it to yourself and to Albion. The truest determinant of magic’s place in his kingdom.”

Arthur senses Merlin’s uncertainty as he bends closer, their foreheads nearly touching now. He feels a soft, hesitant pressure on his lips and hopes Merlin doesn’t feel how his heart pounds.

His eyesight clears; he can see the night shining on Merlin’s dark hair, see the eyelashes brushing against his cheeks, see how the warlock blushed and closed his eyes —

They jerk apart at a mighty splash from their right. Merlin shoots to his feet and runs to the railing, leaning over so far Arthur fears he’ll fall. From his position on the ground he can’t tell what the sound was. Uneasily he scans the bridge, and then, scarcely believing his eyes, he looks again. And once more. And then stands, shaking slightly, his side shooting pain but less so.

He wasn’t mistaken.

The creature is gone.

He wobbles over to Merlin. The warlock points out over the water.

“That thing jumped overboard,” he says, calm through his shock. “It had us right here, could have killed us both, and instead it jumped over the side.” He leans on the railing. “I’ll never understand magical creatures.”

Arthur moves beside him, and he’d swear their proximity makes him feel stronger, makes the wound at his side stitch itself closed. He stands straight and clears his throat. Merlin glances at him, then swiftly studies the moon’s reflection on the surface of the water.

“Why aren’t I dead” Arthur asks.

Merlin looks at him. “Are you complaining?”

“Well, if it means having to put up with your company—” He breaks off abruptly at the wince Merlin tries and fails to hide. The warlock makes a show of studying his hands, picking at the skin at the side of his nail beds. Arthur gently takes one hand in his own, stopping the motion. “Merlin. I didn’t mean it.”

Merlin shrugs, looking at their hands. Arthur laces their fingers together. They stand in comfortable silence, and the breeze off the water reminds them they’re alive, alive, alive. The gigantic clock tower across the bridge chimes once, and Merlin speaks after the echo fades away.

“It was a test,” he says softly. He doesn’t look at Arthur. “The creature wanted me to make a choice, to choose between you and what your line represents.”

Arthur frowns. “What my line represents?”

Merlin squeezes their fingers and says, “Your father had a history of persecuting magic for his entire reign. So, in making me choose whether or not to save you, the creature was telling me that an Albion with magic would all but be assured with your death. If you lived … then the fate of magic would rest on your shoulders and yours alone.”

“But you chose me, even though—though magic might be hunted even more if I lived,” Arthur says slowly. The sacrifice Merlin just made hits him like a lance to the chest. “You chose me over hundreds of people?”

“There's no need to sound so surprised,” Merlin mutters. “I didn't realize you were so blind all these years. Perhaps you are a cabbage head after all.”

“You know, you really can't address me like that,” Arthur replies absently. Merlin smirks, and he remembers. “Oh.”

“Yes, that’s one of the first things you ever said to me,” Merlin says lightly. “Who would've thought this”—he holds up their joined hands—“is how it would end?”

They share a smile, the warlock and the king.

“There's something I don't quite understand, though,” Arthur says after a moment. “You remember how you told me, after I came back, that Albion was about to face her greatest threat?” A nod. “But this chicken thing jumped into the river on its own. It can't truly have been the greatest threat, can it?”

“No, it can't have been,” Merlin agrees. He looks like he's waiting for Arthur to catch on.

“Then what was the threat?”

Merlin sighs. “It was you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. The king is almost always the greatest threat to his kingdom. Look at your father; he was the reason for hundreds of deaths and tortures during his time as king. You're even more dangerous, because you stand at a great crossroads. Do you follow the path Uther made, or will you forge your own? You’re the threat because you have to decide whether to allow magic. You're the threat because you have to steer the kingdom, Arthur. That’s why the creature leapt into the water; it forced us into making a choice.”

He finishes his speech with an air of finality, looking at Arthur. Arthur feels extremely nauseas. A great weight the size of Camelot seems to have fallen upon his shoulders.

“But don't worry,” Merlin continues, and he turns Arthur’s head to face him. “You won't have to make those decisions alone. If you don't want to.”

Arthur pauses in mock consideration to prolong the touch. Merlin pulls away after a few minutes of silence, his eyes downcast. “Of course, if you don't want me near —”

Arthur rolls his eyes and kisses him soundly, effectively stopping his words.

“Merlin,” he says firmly once they surface for air, “if you say something so idiotic again, I'm putting you in the stocks.”

“There aren't any stocks outside of museums,  _ sire _ ,” the warlock replies. He searches the king's face.

“Merlin.”

“Yes, clotpole?”

“Please be quiet and let me kiss you.”

“As you wish, sire,” and he was, so he did.

Arthur speaks against Merlin’s lips, bolstered by the undeniable answer to his earlier wonderings, and says, simply, “Thank you.”

Merlin doesn't answer, but Arthur feels his response is evident enough in how he kisses him back.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Merthur fic, so there're a few things I'd fix if I were to write it again; however, it is what it is. Thanks for reading :) I'm on Tumblr if you wanna say hi: ivecarvedawoodenheart :)


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